Let the market - not the SRA - force price transparency

Before doing anything, might I suggest the Solicitors Regulation Authority looks up the career of Dick Fosbury.

Fosbury was the US sensation whose unprecedented – and often ridiculed – method for jumping over a bar brought him an Olympic gold medal in 1968.

Fosbury’s innovation was the key to success, allowing him to beat athletes stuck with old methods, before the sport quickly caught up with him.

Now imagine the Olympics organisers had insisted everyone do the ‘flop’ in 1968. Fosbury’s USP would no longer be unique and he loses his competitive edge – along with possibly his gold medal.

Now imagine a law firm attempts to be innovative and consumer-friendly by publishing its prices.

It’s a step that is entirely in-keeping with the mood music played by the Competition and Markets Authority and should, in theory, give it a head start on rivals more reticent about such transparency.

I have my reservations about the merits of publishing prices online, but I see the advantage to lawyers of trying it.

Now the SRA wants everyone to join in and is planning to make it compulsory – killing the innovation it seeks to engender.

If clients benefit from price publication, and clearly that is the thinking behind this, then the best firms will already be doing it.

What business is it of the SRA to mandate that all firms follow suit? Isn’t that fundamentally uncompetitive to the firms leading innovation?

I’ve put this point to Crispin Passmore, the SRA’s executive director for policy, who tells me firms need a ‘nudge’ to be more transparent.

No, they don’t. The market needs to be left alone by meddling regulators who exist to protect the public, not dictate how firms win clients. The market can decide: if the public want transparency (and most likely they do) then let them choose the firms really committed to it.

Don’t believe me? How about consulting the person who said this on innovation in November 2015: ‘We are not here to tell you how to innovate, or when you might need to. We are interested in what happens as a result.’

The quotes were from Passmore himself. He was right: the SRA should not tell people how to innovate. Fosbury was a pioneer: it wasn’t the authorities’ job to force his competitors to catch up.

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Anonymous at 12.30. I am not saying I want this, and I am not 'appeasing' anyone. What I am saying is I want some say (and perhaps control) in what might be coming our way. I wish the Law Society well in its endeavours. However, should it fail (and quite frankly it shouldn't need our help), our plan B might be well received.

The SRA, engaged in its unwanted, but richly funded, regulatory activism, has become a destructive force, which threatens the very existence of solicitors as professionals.

To those who beat around the bush, lorganisations such as the Bold Group, they should not be appeasing competition obsessed regulators, but supporting the Law Society in its fight with the SSRA, to defend the interests of all solicitors.

I think Chris's comments about quality are very valid. However, there must be merit in addressing both price and quality. Being as clear and upfront as is humanly possible about all legal costs before making a decision to instruct must be seen as a fundamental requirement but so too should a range of operational performance data including external client reviews. We at the Bold Legal Group are working closely with the SLC and other interested parties to try to bring forward an equitable market solution that offers this breadth of objective insight for the whole of the conveyancing market.

Upon what basis can the SRA force me to publish prices? Can someone please refer me to the statutory provision which allows them to do this.
All of this is based upon the concern that people with a legal problem don’t know where to go to get answers and don’t bother to seek an answer through fear of cost.
Even if that is correct what has that got to do with me or indeed with the SRA?

The SRA has itself been 'nudged', by oversight regulator the LSB, which in turn was given a strong steer by the Competition & Markets Authority's review of legal services last year. On the basis of flimsy research, the CMA said that legal services providers should be mandated by their regulators to publish information on price & quality. The CMA's threat was a fuller market investigation if its recommendations were not implemented.

This is what the SRA is responding to - but while they're content to talk about price, we hardly ever see or hear them refer to quality. Indeed in their current consultation they say they've decided to ignore accreditations - this decision based on an assessment of (a small number of, exclusively Law Society originated) accreditation schemes by the Lamentable Legal Services Consumer Panel in 2014. How galling if your firm has worked long & hard on an internationally-recognised quality standard such as ISO9001. And how perverse, when government departments actually require law firms to demonstrate they have such accreditations.

LawNet firms believe that potential clients are interested in quality - they want to know how well they will be served by a law firm, what it will be like to be their client. That's not just an opinion, either. LawNet firms have been assessing online post-matter client satisfaction surveys for the past four years. As a result, our research is far from flimsy. Data from 50,000 client surveys over four years from 60 firms tells us that, in answer to the question "What was the main reason for you instructing us?", only 4% said price.

John Hyde is right - firms should be able to innovate and differentiate themselves as they wish and price will only ever be the sole differentiating factor where the product or service is a pure commodity (utilities, for example). In other properly-functioning markets, some businesses are relaxed about portraying themselves as 'reassuringly expensive'.

It would be good - and a far more appropriate ambition for a regulator - for the SRA to be more concerned about raising service standards, because that is of much greater importance to clients. It should also champion and maintain client protections, rather than pursue policies that will reduce those protections.

I'm looking forward to the SRA publishing its fees for bringing prosecutions against errant solicitors in advance.
The figures are eye watering and I'm clearly in the wrong field.
Given that the SRA no longer holds its board meetings in public I wonder how they'll feel about telling us what they'll charge us if we act in a conflict situation!

It's more than a "nudge" to force firms to do something that doesn't come naturally. The SRA seems to be in favour of open markets when they benefit consumers, and against them when they are perceived to disadvantage consumers. This reflects the SRA's self-selected mission to be the consumer's champion, rather than a neutral regulator. Why does the Law Society continue to tolerate (and pay about half the practising fee to) this hostile force?

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